Kanye West showed off his diamond teeth to Ellen DeGeneres yesterday, sparking a whole new round of speculation about his expensive dentures. One dentist thinks his diamond teeth are as bad for his health as they are for his ego.

After his teeth were knocked out in a 2002 car crash, Kanye West must have thought to himself, "What is the most ridiculous thing I could replace my teeth with?" The most ridiculous thing would be tiny machine guns he could use to shoot critics who gave his music bad reviews. But since that's probably illegal, Kanye settled on the next-most-ridiculous thing: Diamond teeth, which he first showed off on Twitter in July. These are not grills, he told Ellen yesterday: "It's really my real teeth… it replaced my bottom row of teeth."

The only thing that would make this more absurd is if these diamond teeth might lead to serious lasting health problems. According to one dentist interviewed by the LA Times, they could!

"If [this fixture is] permanent, good luck with oral hygiene," says Julien Tudose at Dental Care of La Verne near the Inland Empire. "Chewing is going to be a bit of a challenge. No peanut butter brittle, no opening a can of beer with your teeth. It's going to affect his jaw also because ... the weight of the diamond is greater than a normal tooth structure. If he doesn't have anything on the top [row], it will wear the top part of the teeth faster. In five to seven to 10 years, he'll have damage on his upper teeth."

Then he'll replace his upper teeth with diamonds, too. This is going to turn into Kanye West's version of plastic surgery addiction. In 2040 he'll show up at the Grammys a solid chunk of precious metal, his brain two bulbous rubies. A rhyming Midas.